Black, White, and Red All Over
by Hawki
Summary: Oneshot: Rey didn't know what was black, white, and read all over, but she certainly knew what was black, white, and red all over.


**Black, White, and Red All Over**

"Hey Rey. What's black, white, and read all over?"

"Easy." She gestured to the soldiers moving through the chasm below. "Them."

"What? No, read. R-E-A-D."

She stared at him, and Finn sighed. "Never mind."

She could tell that Finn had had a clever joke in mind. How clever it would have been was something she could only guess at. Not unless she read his thoughts, and she wasn't about to stoop to that level. A year ago, her mind had been violated by the man who now led the First Order, and by extension, the soldiers moving through the chasm below. One way or another, she was never going to let that happen again.

Still, she reflected, as she, Finn, and the rest of the squad looked down at the approaching column, she thought her guess wasn't too bad. Because in addition to the hover tanks and AT-STs that plodded their way across the icy wastes of Lorgar, were the troopers that were marching across the snow with them. Troopers that one could have mistaken for run of the mill stormtroopers if one had been colour-blind. But, by virtue of being able to see the spectrum of visible light, Rey could see that they were different. Same black slits in the same style of helmet, granted. Same blaster rifles as well. But whereas the armour of stormtroopers was as white as the snow that these soldiers marched over, their armour was red. Flakes of snow dropped on it, but red was the dominant colour. Red like the colour of blood. Red like the colour of a Sith's blade. Red that befitted their role as so-called Sith troopers, most loyal subjects of Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the First Order, and the Last Skywalker.

He'd taken the title a month ago, Rey reflected. Some means of granting himself legitimacy perhaps, or a way to spite his foes. Anakin Skywalker was long dead. His two children were one with the Force now. Their heir, the only Skywalker left standing, had unmade their legacy in months – destroyed what had taken decades to accomplish. And as if to spite them, he had added Sith troopers to the ranks of the First Order. Fanatics that removed any doubt from the minds of the galaxy's peoples that the First Order was nothing more than the Sith resurgent, no matter what its leader might call himself.

"Rey?"

She looked at Finn.

"You alright?"

"Fine," she murmured, before returning her gaze to the column below – on its way to attack Juno Base, and if Finn's squad had its way, would never reach it. She shifted her gaze from the column to the other side of the chasm. "Your girlfriend set the charges? Running a bit late aren't they?"

"Don't worry, Rose did…wait, what?"

"Easy Finn, secret's safe with me."

"Rey."

She ignored him, instead picking up some omninoculars to peer down at the column.

"Rey."

She looked at him. "What?" she hissed.

"Rose and I…we're not…I mean she…"

"She kissed you on Crait, you didn't object. You've kissed her at least once since then. That makes you a couple."

Finn stared at her and Rey shifted her gaze back downwards.

"None of my business of course," she murmured.

"Yeah. It's not."

"So we agree."

"Yeah. We agree." He gave her a light nudge. "What, you jealous?"

"No," she lied.

Finn didn't say anything. Without looking at his face, Rey couldn't tell if he'd bought her lie or not. Though of course, it didn't matter. She'd read the texts of the Jedi. The old Order had forbidden romantic entanglements. Maybe it was such a rule that had sent Anakin Skywalker down the path he had, but then, what of the other argument? Ben Solo had been born from a union forged in love, and now both his parents were dead, and he was the most dangerous person in the galaxy. And Luke?

Luke Skywalker had died alone on a distant planet. Luke would live forever in legend, but in that moment, on that world, Rey had sensed it. His relief and regret meshed as one. Her own fate one day, she supposed. And one that she couldn't alter by giving into whatever may or may not lie in her heart. She squinted through the omninoculars…

And saw Rose Tico's work do its magic.

Explosives erupted from the ground, shredding machine and flesh alike. On the other side of the chasm, more explosives went off, flinging ice and stone down into the chasm below. Rey winced and turned away – her eyes were spared the sight of enemies being crushed, of being blown apart, their blood staining the snow. Her mind, her heart, were not. Enemies or not, they were alive. They were part of the Force. In that way at least, they were still connected.

"That's my girl," Finn murmured. He activated his comm-link. "Squad, open fire."

Rao Squad did just that – a barrage of lasers and rockets tearing into the First Order down below. After a moment, Rey drew out her own blaster rifle and added her fire to the barrage, if not her fury. The AT-STs were down, either crippled by the explosives, or toppled over by the barrage of rock. Only two hover-tanks remained, and half of the Sith troopers as well. One way or another, the Resistance would win this fight, as they had already done on hundreds of worlds. Death by a thousand cuts, and even as it lumbered through the galaxy, the First Order was surely bleeding. But even a wounded animal would fight back.

She tried to distance herself as she took the life of a Sith trooper, her laser passing through his helmet as he fired back with one arm (the other was lying on the snow beside him). Tried, and failed. Life generated the Force. She'd taken a life. In that very act, she wounded the Force itself. Through the taking of life came death, and following death, decay. Thus, the Dark Side was fed. That it was so far only the First Order doing the dying was small comfort to her right now.

_Oh no._

One of the hover tanks had got operational. Its turret was pointing upwards.

_No!_

It fired. It hit the cliff-face just below Rao Squad. One of their number fell back, screaming, as shrapnel shredded through his winter gear and skin.

"Damn it, someone take out that tank!" Finn yelled.

Rey got to her feet. "On it."

"Rey, what are you doing?"

She jogged backwards, then ran up to the edge.

"Rey!"

She didn't answer. She just jumped off, flipping over and over through the frigid air. Halfway through, she activated a lightsaber. Not her lightsaber, but Luke's lightsaber. The lightsaber of the Last Jedi. The lightsaber of the true Last Skywalker. The lightsaber that, as she landed on top of the tank, promptly cut off its barrel. So when its plasma shell popped out, it ended up destroying the whole tank in a blaze of fire, by which time she'd already flipped backwards and onto the snow. The Sith troopers that were still standing glanced around, at the Resistance forces firing at them, and the lightsaber-wielder in their midst.

"It's over," Rey said.

Some of the troopers kept firing upwards. Some turned their blasters on her.

"You've lost. Drop your weapons and-"

They opened fire, and so blinding was the light, Rey doubted they could see the sorrow in her eyes.

She had no trouble deflecting the bolts. Deep as the snow was, she was able to shift from left to right, like dancing upon the surface of water. The shining blade was her metronome, and it kept her in rhythm. A shift to the left, and she dodged a bolt. A shift to the right, and she reflected it back into a trooper, wounding them. Or at times, killing them. Within a minute, all of the First Order forces here had been destroyed, leaving Rey standing alone. No blood stained the snow around her, but the snow itself had been scorched, by blade and bolt alike. So in silence, and in sorrow, she remained standing there, as the rest of Rao Squad abseiled down the crevasse.

"Yeah!" Finn exclaimed. "Now that's what I'm talking about."

Rey winced as he gave her a heavy pat on the back, and the rest of Rao Squad cheered (or in the case of Cumrubee, made a sound like a dying bantha). She deactivated her lightsaber and hung it at her belt.

"Hey, cheer up," Finn said. She looked up at him. At his smirk. "We only just took out an entire convoy without a single casualty."

"Wonderful," Rey murmured. She walked along the snow, past the bodies of the dead and the dying. What few Sith troopers had survived would soon be dead. Rao Squad had neither the means nor inclination to transport them to Juno Base. And even she knew that so many of them were past saving. The First Order stormtroopers had been trained from day one to be unthinking killing machines. Trained in such a manner that people like FN-2187 should have been impossible. From everything the Resistance had seen, the Sith troopers were a step beyond. No use treating those who couldn't even be saved.

And yet, she could feel them. Pity them. She looked at a trooper, struggling to get up. His helmet rose to meet her eyes, and she could feel it. Anger and hatred, but without fear. A festering hole in the Force, a void that sucked in light and fed the Dark Side. The Sith troopers might not be Force-users, but Rey could see what Kylo had done. He'd done unto others what had been done to him. And now, the galaxy could bathe in the blood that his fanatics shed.

The trooper rose his blaster to shoot at her. Finn yelled out her name. Rey simply rose her hand and yanked the rifle from the trooper's grasp.

"It's over," she said.

The trooper got to his feet, raising his fists in a fighting pose.

"You have to understand that, right?" Rey asked.

The trooper said nothing. He just stood there. Taking a breath, Rey walked over.

"I know what he's done to you," Rey said. She looked at Finn, who was standing there, clutching his blaster rifle like a lifeline. "He did to you what the First Order tried to do to him."

"Don't bring me into this Rey," Finn murmured.

Rey ignored him and kept walking. "I can help you," she said. "The Resistance can help you."

The trooper just stood there.

"Let me help you, as another man helped me," Rey said. "I-"

"Rey!"

She saw the trooper draw out a knife from his belt. That wasn't a problem, as she rose her hand to yank it away as well. But what she couldn't stop (or at least didn't) was the laser that cut through the air, penetrating the trooper's helmet, and beyond that, his skull. He fell into the snow, lifeless.

"No!" She knelt down, but knew it was already too late. The darkness was fading, but the wound in the Force remained. Death fed the Dark, even when the Dark itself was slain. Slowly, trembling with rage, she looked at Finn, who lowered his rifle.

"Come on," he said. "Base is waiting."

"We could have saved him," Rey whispered. Finn began to walk away, and she got to her feet. Anger from suffering fed into her, and it took all her willpower to keep hatred at bay. "Are you even listening to me?"

"Rey, we can't save them," Finn said. "They're Sith troopers."

"Why?" She asked.

"Come on Rey." He kept walking.

"No. Why." She walked up in front of him. "Why not? You were saved."

"I was. And?"

"And? What do you mean, _and_?"

"And what does that mean Rey?" he asked. He gave her a shove. "Go on, tell me. Because if the First Order's death squads can be saved, where are they?" He looked at the corpse of a Sith trooper and gave it a kick. "I know what they do to you Rey, and what they've done to these people, it's even worse. So don't go telling me who can or can't be _saved_." He walked past her, making a point to have his shoulder hit her chest.

"You've changed," Rey murmured.

"Yeah. I have. And because of that, I know which side I'm on." He looked back at her. "Do you?"

Rey said nothing. She just stood there, in the valley of death. Feeling the Force writhe round her. The Force awakened, and screaming, still caught in the nightmare of Light and Dark. As the legacies of the Jedi and Sith continued their cycle again, and again, and again. Scarring the fabric of the galaxy itself.

Scarring the snow, with fire and blood.

Scarring her.

* * *

_A/N_

_So, as many reservations as I have about _The Rise of Skywalker _right now, can we at least agree that the Sith trooper designs are awesome?_

_We can't?_

_Figures. :(_

_Update (19/08/19): I've corrected the "insert designation here" line. It slipped my notice while proofreading._


End file.
